About This Show

Listen Whenever

Related Shows

Most Recent Episode

118: A Piece of Luck with Jessica Kerr

Feb 19
·
66 minutes

Jessica Kerr talks about being the property of a situation, the interpretation of luck and the psychology of scarcity, physics, the ways people tend to undervalue code, and defining "done" in software development.
Are you truly involved in the developer communities you work in and sell to? Are you seeing the value in the events you are a part of? DevRelate.io can help! Developer and Community Relations as a Service: we speak developer!
Learn more at DevRelate.io or email us at info at DevRelate.io!
Panelists:
Jacob Stoebel | Sam Livingston-Gray | Jamey Hampton | Jessica Kerr
Links:
01:50 - Jess’s Superpower: Being a Property of a Situation
Karl Popper
04:25 - The Interpretation of Luck and the Psychology of Scarcity
08:17 - Physics; Physics and Software
12:06 - Conference Speaking
15:53 - Undervaluing Code
22:13 - Defining ‘Done’ in Software Development
"Done" is fine for the mathy things like functions, algorithms, proofs. But not for environmental things like heuristics, calibrations, data collection, business rules. And "better" itself is a heuristic, so you'll never be "done" defining it. :)
— David Barbour (@awelonblue) February 7, 2019
Email is like laundry. There is no such thing as "done."
My job is not to do the laundry, it is to keep the laundry moving.
Nor to answer all the email, but to keep some correspondence flowing.
— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) February 11, 2019
25:51 - TDD, the notion that “Coding is easy!”, and Resilience to Failure
Smart Kid Syndrome
Pairing with Bunny
42:04 - Learning While Teaching Others Programming
Avdi and Jess stumble through modern web development
JessiTRONica on Twitch
Aikido
Reflections:
Jamey: Things never being “the end”.
Finite and Infinite Games (print)
Finite and Infinite Games (pdf)
Sam: There might be an ending for you, specifically, but it’s not really an ending for anyone else.
Jacob: Figuring out problems by vocalizing them.
Jessica: Check out recent works from Karl Popper.
This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.
To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.
Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!
Transcript:
[Are you truly involved in the developer communities you work in and sell to? Are you seeing the value in the events that you are a part of? DevRelate.io can help. Developer and Community Relations as a Service -- we speak developer. Learn more at DevRelate.io or email us at info at DevRelate.io.]
JACOB: Hello and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 118. My name is Jacob Stoebel. I've somehow broken into this Skype call and here with Sam Livingston-Gray.
SAM: Hello and I am super thrilled to be able to introduce the man, the legend, Jameson Hampton.
JAMEY: Thank you, Sam and I'm here with my great friend, Jessica Kerr who's about to introduce a very, very special guest.
JESSICA: Thank you, Jamey. Our guest today has been writing code professionally for 20 years. Before that, she went to college for physics and before that, she was a child star -- okay, an extra in several musicals and skits because her grandmother was the director. These days, she raises two children, she speaks at conferences which is like drama, except you get to write your own script and she podcast in a couple places and she's very excited to tell you her superpower today because it's me. I'm the guest!
SAM: Surprise.
JAMEY: Welcome to the show, Jess.
JESSICA: Thanks, Jamey.
JAMEY: It's so good to have you here on Greater Than Code for the first time.
JESSICA: And for hundredth times.
JAMEY: Jess, why don't you tell us about your superpower.
JESSICA: I was thinking about this,

Jessica Kerr talks about being the property of a situation, the interpretation of luck and the psychology of scarcity, physics, the ways people tend to undervalue code, and defining "done" in software development.
Are you truly involved in the developer communities you work in and sell to? Are you seeing the value in the events you are a part of? DevRelate.io can help! Developer and Community Relations as a Service: we speak developer!
Learn more at DevRelate.io or email us at info at DevRelate.io!
Panelists:
Jacob Stoebel | Sam Livingston-Gray | Jamey Hampton | Jessica Kerr
Links:
01:50 - Jess’s Superpower: Being a Property of a Situation
Karl Popper
04:25 - The Interpretation of Luck and the Psychology of Scarcity
08:17 - Physics; Physics and Software
12:06 - Conference Speaking
15:53 - Undervaluing Code
22:13 - Defining ‘Done’ in Software Development
"Done" is fine for the mathy things like functions, algorithms, proofs. But not for environmental things like heuristics, calibrations, data collection, business rules. And "better" itself is a heuristic, so you'll never be "done" defining it. :)
— David Barbour (@awelonblue) February 7, 2019
Email is like laundry. There is no such thing as "done."
My job is not to do the laundry, it is to keep the laundry moving.
Nor to answer all the email, but to keep some correspondence flowing.
— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) February 11, 2019
25:51 - TDD, the notion that “Coding is easy!”, and Resilience to Failure
Smart Kid Syndrome
Pairing with Bunny
42:04 - Learning While Teaching Others Programming
Avdi and Jess stumble through modern web development
JessiTRONica on Twitch
Aikido
Reflections:
Jamey: Things never being “the end”.
Finite and Infinite Games (print)
Finite and Infinite Games (pdf)
Sam: There might be an ending for you, specifically, but it’s not really an ending for anyone else.
Jacob: Figuring out problems by vocalizing them.
Jessica: Check out recent works from Karl Popper.
This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.
To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.
Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!
Transcript:
[Are you truly involved in the developer communities you work in and sell to? Are you seeing the value in the events that you are a part of? DevRelate.io can help. Developer and Community Relations as a Service -- we speak developer. Learn more at DevRelate.io or email us at info at DevRelate.io.]
JACOB: Hello and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 118. My name is Jacob Stoebel. I've somehow broken into this Skype call and here with Sam Livingston-Gray.
SAM: Hello and I am super thrilled to be able to introduce the man, the legend, Jameson Hampton.
JAMEY: Thank you, Sam and I'm here with my great friend, Jessica Kerr who's about to introduce a very, very special guest.
JESSICA: Thank you, Jamey. Our guest today has been writing code professionally for 20 years. Before that, she went to college for physics and before that, she was a child star -- okay, an extra in several musicals and skits because her grandmother was the director. These days, she raises two children, she speaks at conferences which is like drama, except you get to write your own script and she podcast in a couple places and she's very excited to tell you her superpower today because it's me. I'm the guest!
SAM: Surprise.
JAMEY: Welcome to the show, Jess.
JESSICA: Thanks, Jamey.
JAMEY: It's so good to have you here on Greater Than Code for the first time.
JESSICA: And for hundredth times.
JAMEY: Jess, why don't you tell us about your superpower.
JESSICA: I was thinking about this,